Valson Thampu It is now a year since Paul Kalanithi’s When Breath Becomes Air was published (February 2016). Not surprisingly, it has made its way into the Booker list for 2016. It is remarkable how this book has gripped – in part, certainly, by our fearful fascination with its subjectContinue Reading

By Valson Thampu An actress is waylaid and molested. Sex, we are told, came in by the backdoor in this carefully scripted episode. The plot hinged on extortion. (As though rape is not extortion: murderous extortion). Maneka Gandhi makes a feeble effort to link this to the Kerala political dispensation.Continue Reading

By Valson Thampu On January 17, 2016, Rohit Vemula certified his caste identity with a touch of finality only he could have afforded. He tightened a noose around his neck. Left a note pretty much to the effect that he was only making visible the noose that had caught hisContinue Reading